Oh my, how I loved this novella (it just scrapes in under 200 pages). The story of Helen, ‘Hen’, as told my her youngest daughter Bridget, ‘Bridge’. It’s a toxic relationship for sure, but there is love there too – but it’s the way that Bridget tells it, with a strong streak of very dark Read More
Viper’s Dream by Jake Lamar – Blogtour
This novel just drips atmosphere – of two specific types! First there is Harlem in the 1930s – A contained world within New York City that is as complete in itself as in Chester Himes’ wonderful novels from the late 1950s (which begin with A Rage in Harlem reviewed here). Secondly, there is the world Read More
The 1940 Club: Journey into Fear by Eric Ambler
When looking through my books to choose one to read for Simon and Kaggsy‘s 1940 Club reading week, I was surprised to find I’ve only read one (since I started keeping my spreadsheet) published in 1940 – that was the sublime Miss Hargreaves by Frank Baker (reviewed here). However, I found two super classics from Read More
More. Numbers. Every. Day. by Micael Dahlen & Helge Thorbjørnsen – blog tour
Translated by Paul Norlen. Let’s face it, I was always going to find a popular science book written by a pair of Swedish behavioural economists about the psychology of numbers absolutely fascinating! Back in 2020 I read a book called Numbers Don’t Lie by Vaclav Smil which teased out all kinds of wonderful facts from Read More
NF catch-up
The Kon-Tiki Expedition by Thor Heyerdahl Translated by F H Lyon This was our book group choice for this month, with a sea theme linking from last month’s read, The Old Man & the Sea – yes, we’re playing word association football with our titles at the moment. It was a hit with everyone. We Read More
The Translator by Harriet Crawley – blogtour
Anyone who visits my blog regularly will know that spies and secret agents populate my favourite thrillers, and there are plenty in Harriet Crawley’s splendid new novel The Translator. Crawley, fluent in Russian, lived and worked in Moscow for twenty years – but in the energy sector. Who knows if she knew anyone from Moscow Read More
The Acapulco by Simone Buchholz – Blogtour
Translated by Rachel Ward I joined Buchholz’s Chastity Riley series at #4 Hotel Cartagena, which was an amazing introduction to the fiesty, smoking, hard-drinking Hamburg State Prosecutor – she was caught in a hotel penthouse bar siege, with blood poisoning gradually affecting her which made for a truly different first person narrative. I followed her Read More
Two visits to the Oxford Literary Festival
I did have a ticket for a third visit, Eleanor Catton for her book Birnham Wood, but I wrote the time down wrong on my calendar and when it pinged, the talk was already halfway through. Oh well – silly me! But I did make it to the other two I’d booked – both highly Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. This month Read More
Beautiful Shining People by Michael Grothaus – blogtour
I must admit that reading the first few pages of this novel, by American author Grothaus, I thought 372 pages of this… will I make it to the end? Something I would do my best to do because I’d signed up for the blog tour. Well something clicked and I couldn’t put the book down. Read More
Reading Ireland Month – Trespasses by Louise Kennedy
My second book for Reading Ireland month hosted by Cathy, I’m really glad to have read this superb novel, which has recently been longlisted for the Women’s Prize. It is set in County Down at the time of the Troubles in the early 1970s, and tells the story of two star-crossed lovers – one Catholic, Read More
Reading the Decades #5: The 1950s
I haven’t done one of these posts for a while now. I am more often than not devoted to contemporary fiction, the shiny and the new. But I do read some older books too. The metrics in my annual reading stats include the number of books I’ve read published before I was born in 1960 Read More
Watchlist: Feb into March
Theatre: The Tempest – Shakespeare’s Globe I went with our Year 8s to a special Schools Production of The Tempest at the open air Globe in London. Cut down to ninety minutes. So we got Prospero and Ariel’s magic, Miranda and Ferdinand’s love story, the drunken antics of Trinculo, Stefano and Caliban (the latter in Read More
The Institution by Helen Fields
Last autumn I read a superb standalone thriller by Helen Fields – The Last Girl to Die – and loved it. Set on the Isle of Mull, it involved a missing girl, and lots of witchy lore and had a real sense of place and atmosphere. Having discovered this author, I couldn’t say no to Read More
Squeaky Clean by Callum McSorley – blogtour
I’ve had problems before with Glasgow dialect in novels, spending so much time deciphering it that I lost the enjoyment of reading the text. I really crossed my fingers that Squeaky Clean would be readable, and my heart fell slightly when we met some of the characters that frequent the car wash that makes the Read More
Two shortish reviews: Dusapin and Clare
The Pachinko Parlour by Elisa Shua Dusapin Translated from the French by Aneesa Abbas Higgins Dusapin is a Franco-Korean author who won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Lit for her first novel Winter in Sokcho, which followed the life of a young woman working at a hotel at the town near the Korean Read More
Two short books for the Japanese & Irish Reading challenges
While I hope to squeeze in more books for the Welsh, Irish and Japanese reading months that happen in March, here are two short reviews of two short novellas, one from Japan, one from Ireland… Star by Yukio Mishima Translated by Sam Bett This was my first experience of Mishima, one of those sightly intimidating Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Passages by Gail Sheehy
First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in six more steps. Links to my reviews are in the titles of the books chosen. This month Read More
The Hand That Feeds You by Mercedes Rosende – blogtour
Translated from the Spanish by Tim Gutteridge This is the first novel I’ve read by a Uruguayan author. It was superb, and given my recent diet of mainly Argentinian literature when I’ve ventured to South America to read, it had a different feel to books from its neighbour – Uruguay is sandwiched between the northeast Read More
Catching up with Shiny linkiness…
I’ve had several reviews posted at Shiny New Books lately, so I shall take the opportunity to plug them here as well. Bournville by Jonathan Coe I’ve read nearly everything that Coe has published and reviewed four of them for Shiny (see here). He has favoured themes: many of his most-celebrated novels are concerned with deciphering Read More
The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell
Debut author, Charlotte Vassell, set herself a hard task for her first novel, to make her readers engage with a set of young toffs in London, mostly not working much or very hard, splashing the cash, narcissistic and not caring about the hoi polloi, but she succeeds on several levels. Firstly, the horror of the Read More
The Forcing by Paul E Hardisty – blogtour
Canadian, Hardisty is an engineer, university professor and climate change scientist as well as author of six novels. I’ve not read any of the previous five, but his sixth is an urgent clarion call to us all. If I had to do an elevator pitch for it I’d say… JG Ballard’s The Drought meets Logan’s Read More
January into Feb watchlist
At the theatre: Stewart Lee – at the Oxford Playhouse You either get Lee, or you don’t. He’s unashamedly literary and intellectual for a comedian and I’ve been a fan for years of his TV shows (a couple of his shows are available on BBC iPlayer), but this was the first time I’ve seen him Read More
A One-Session Read – The Chase by Ava Glass
You all know how much I adore spy thrillers, don’t you? Whether on the page or screen, the twisty double or triple-bluffing, the danger, the tradecraft, the rivalry between secret government agencies, the mind games and living on your wits that are the life of the secret agent combine to tick all the thriller boxes Read More
Dead Man’s Creek by Chris Hammer
A Cross-Generational Australian Thriller Chris Hammer’s first three thrillers featured journalist Martin Scarsden; full of complicated, twisty plots that get tied up in the end. All good reads, if a little long, I reviewed the second one, Silver, here. With his fourth novel, Opal Country, Hammer introduced two new protagonists, police investigators this time. Experienced Read More
Book Group Report: The Promise by Damon Galgut
This was our pick from the final decade of the Big Jubilee Read, which we’ve worked through decade by decade of her late maj’s reign. In recent years, our book group has steered clear of most of the big prize-winning books–The Promise won the Booker in 2021–but we were all keen to read this one. Read More
Six Degrees of Separation: Trust by Hernan Diaz
After a couple of months where I was so busy to plan ahead, I’m back for the First Saturday of the month, time for the super monthly tag Six Degrees of Separation, which is hosted by Kate at Booksaremyfavouriteandbest, Six Degrees of Separation #6degrees picks a starting book for participants to go wherever it takes them in Read More
You Will Never Be Found by Tove Alsterdal – #NordicFINDS23
Translated by Alice Menzies It’s fitting to end my Nordic reading for January with this Swedish crime novel – for it was published today! You Will Never be Found is the second in a series featuring Police Assistant Eira Sjödin. I very much enjoyed reading the first volume, We Know You Remember last year, set Read More
#NordicFINDS23 – Wrap Up
Firstly, a huge thank you to everyone who joined in with some Nordic reads for January – I hope you found some new gems from the FINDS countries. I managed six books and am just finishing a seventh, which will make one each from Iceland, Norway and Sweden, and two from Denmark and Finland. Again, Read More
And the Wind Sees All by Guðmundur Andri Thorsson, #NordicFINDS23
Translated by Andrew Cauthery and Björg Árnadóttir I come in off the sea and slide along the spit, and soon I will have vanished with the mist. I am the afternoon breeze; I visit at around half past four and an hour later slip away to my dwelling, made of the past: of the grass that stirred a Read More
